Sometime in August 2011, while driving through Ota, an industrial town in Ogun State, Nigeria, I was stopped by some law enforcement officers that were meant to be responsible for traffic control.
After I parked the vehicle they told me that they were randomly conducting "emission tests" for vehicles plying the highway and started by giving me an ill informed lecture on global warming.
Before now, I was hurrying to beat the traffic I would have to face on entering Lagos State, a densely populated state with plenty of traffic but to ensure that I did not give the officials any undue advantage over me, I kept my calm.
So I told them that they could carry out the test, just then, one of the officials told me that the test would cost me two thousand naira to which I responded, What!
It was bad enough for them to force me to allow them conduct the test on the exhaust of my car, now I have to also pay for it. Immediately, I made up my mind that I was not going to pay for such and the amount itself was ridiculous for just conducting a test. It’s not like they would make repairs to my car if it had emission problems.
My vehicle being fairly new was not emitting smoke at all and I made effort to draw their attention to all the heavy duty trucks that passed by emitting terribly carbonized substances into the air. But they were not bothered and threatened to issue me a ticket which I would have to clear by paying an amount in the bank.
I told them that if they were looking for ideas to internally generate revenue, this was not the way. It was pure extortion. Even the roads in that place have been bad for years why don’t they fix it and maybe install a toll gate or something better and stop harassing innocent citizens. I eventually was let go without having to pay anything but my time was well wasted any ways.
.....picture gotten from zazzle.com
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